Getting Spirited Away in JiuFen

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wilder-beast migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
6
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
7
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
6
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling food market
3
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
4
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
7
Overall Score
The highest score of nature or culture, + fun factor, + avoid the crowds, + the highest score of world famous or unique. Then turned into a score out of 100. More details at the bottom of the page
57 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
continent
Asia
country
Taiwan
Length of time
1-2 days
Rough cost
Obviously people have different tastes, so this will depend on those tastes, but this is a rough idea of price of the whole experience based on 2 people able to split the accommodation costs and excluding travel there and back
$ 100
Time of year visited
May
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Hiking Hilltop towns Local villages
All Tags
Old town
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site
244th/372 This travel experience's ranking compared to all the other experiences on this site
Top 70% SUMMARY RATING: Worth doing

Summary

Jiufen is very cute.  With its narrow lanes, ornamental crafted roofs and whimsical tea houses, it’s no wonder Hayao Miyazaki was inspired to make the famous Japanese animated movie Spirited Away here.  Very much worth the time to make a day trip from Taipei.  Just two main tips:

 

  1. Try to stay overnight, or at least arrive super early in the morning – the place gets very crowded, especially considering the narrow streets, by around mid to late morning.  Yet you’ll have it to yourself in the early morning and evening
  2. Make sure to climb nearby Mount Keelung – its only half an hour or so to reach the summit, and the walk through the long flowing grass and views down on Jiufen and the surrounding area from the top make it a great option.  Plus, it is less busy once the day tourists arrive in Jiufen

highlights

#1 The sheer cuteness of the place that inspired the movie Spirited Away

#2 Walking to the summit of nearby Mount Keelung. Only 30mins to the top and great views of Jiufen and its surrounding areas

#3 The food! Perfect place to sample endless dumplings in a variety of tea and dumpling houses

#4 Wandering through the atmospheric street in the evenings, when most of the crowds have gone and you feel a bit more of the charm of this super cool spot

Experiences nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

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Score Detail

Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"?  That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others.  That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score

This overall experience score is calculated by:  take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10).  Then convert into a score out of 100

Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique".  Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides.  So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique".  But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience).  So, both of these scores are standalone